Abstract
In ending his work with such a hyperbolic celebration of its salvatory qualities, Albrecht is doing more than merely preconditioning a positive reception: he is making a theoretical claim about the redemptive potential of textuality and hence about the benefits of literacy.
Nu pruefet, alle werden, die wirde dises buoches! von duetscher zung uf erden nie getichte wart so werdes ruoches, daz lib und sele so hoch gen wirde wiset, alle, di iz hoeren, lesen oder schriben, der sele mueze werden geparadiset.
(J.T. 6327)
[Now let all worthy people judge the worth of this book. No poem spoken on earth by a German tongue was ever composed of such worthy concerns, pointing body and soul so well toward worthiness that the souls of all who hear, or read, or copy it, must attain paradise.]
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Notes
For the extent to which the religious concerns of Parzival are compatible with the symbolic structure associated with the works of Chrétien and Hartmann, see Walter Haug, “Die Symbolstruktur des höfischen Epos und ihre Auflösung bei Wolfram von Eschenbach,” Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte 45 (1971): 668–705.
Ulrich von Zatzikhoven’s Lanzelet charts the Arthurian hero’s string of sexual conquests without showing any hint of moral disapproval. Cf. Nicola McLelland, Ulrich von Zatzikhoven’s Lanzelet: Narrative Style and Entertainment, Arthurian Studies 46 (Cambridge UK: D.S. Brewer, 2000).
Walter Haug, “Paradigmatische Poesie. Der spätere deutsche Artusroman auf dem Weg zu einer ‘nachklassischen’ Ästhetik,” Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte 54 (1980): 212 [204–231].
For an overview of the exemplum as a rhetorical category, see Nigel F. Palmer, “Exempla,” in Medieval Latin. An Introduction and Bibliographical Guide, ed. F. A.C. Mantello and A.G. Rigg (Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1996), pp. 582–588.
For an overview of the idiosyncrasies of this text, see Hans Hugo Steinhoff, “Göttweiger Trojanerkrieg,” in Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters. Verfasserlexikon, ed. Kurt Ruh, 2nd edn., 10 vols. (Berlin: de Gruyter: 1978–1999), 3:199–201. Whilst ostensibly an ‘Antikenroman’ [romance set in antiquity] recounting the fall of Troy, the Göttweiger Trojanerkrieg draws extensively on the narrative models associated with Arthurian romance and even endows certain protagonists with distinctively Arthurian names (e.g., Gahmuret from Parzival, Larie from Wirnt von Grafenberg’s Wigalois). Like the J.T., this text is also narratologically complex, with a narrator who is sometimes identified as Wolfram von Eschenbach, but who sometimes refers to Wolfram as a separate individual. There are also numerous dialogues between ‘Wolfram’ and an allegorical figure (in this case, vrou Minne) controlling the events of the narrative.
Dennis Howard Green, “Fiktionalität und weiße Flecken in Wolframs ‘Parzival,’” Wolfram-Studien 17 (2002): 30–45.
For the historical anchoring of Parzival, see Horst Brunner, “Artus der wise höfsche man. Zur immanenten Historizität der Ritterwelt im ‘Parzival’ Wolframs von Eschenbach,” in Germanistik in Erlangen. Hundert Jahre nach der Gründung des Deutschen Seminars, ed. Dietmar Peil, Erlanger Forschungen, Reihe A, Geisteswissenschaften 31 (Erlangen: Universitätsbund Erlangen-Nürnberg, 1983), pp. 61–73; and
Joachim Bumke, “Parzival und Feirefiz—Priester Johannes—Loherangrin: Der offene Schluß des Parzival von Wolfram von Eschenbach,” Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrft für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte 65 (1991), 236–264. For the very different ways in which historicity is also foregrounded in the courtly romances of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, see Ridder, Minne—und Aventiureromane, pp. 147–154.
For the origins of the story of Adam’s daughters and for its presentation in Middle High German literature (notably in the Wiener Genesis, the Lucidarius, Wolfram’s Parzival, and Reinfried von Braunschweig), see Roy Wisbey, “Wunder des Ostens in der ‘Wiener Genesis’ und in Wolframs ‘Parzival,’” in Studien zur frühmittelhochdeutschen Literatur. Cambridger Colloquium 1971, ed. Leslie Peter Johnson, Publications of the Institute of Germanic Studies of the University of London 19 (Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 1974), pp. 190–198 [pp. 180–214]. In Reinfried von Braunschweig 19,628–19,932 ed. Carl von Kraus, Bibliothek des Litterarischen Vereins in Stuttgart 109 (Stuttgart: Litterarischer Verein, 1871). This story is invoked specifically in order to explain the existence of a fierce population (possibly modeled on the descendants of Radoltz in the J.T.) who are made entirely of horn and who fight on the side of the Amazons. In the Reinfried version, the guilty women are not Adam’s immediate daughters, but later female descendants living after the flood: Adam’s insights having survived the flood by being inscribed onto a pillar, the women read the information about the properties of the different herbs and resolve to put this to the test, with the result that a range of monstrous populations are brought into the world. Nonetheless, far from insisting on the truthfulness of this account, the narrator of Reinfried admits that he has never seen monstrous people himself.
Elke Brüggen, “Fiktionalität und Didaxe. Annäherungen an die Dignität lehrhafter Rede im Mittelalter,” in Text und Kultur. Mittelalterliche Literatur 1150–1450, ed. Ursula Peters (Stuttgart: Metzler: 2001), p. 574 [pp. 546–574].
In Gottfried’s Tristan, the relationship between narrative and excurses is famously problematic (cf. Huber, Tristan, pp. 118–119). However, even in Hartmann’s Iwein, there are occasional tensions between the murky events of the narrative and the narrator’s ostensible insistence that all is well. For this narrator’s (possibly ironic) endorsement of Laudine’s marriage to Iwein, see Thomas Cramer, “Sælde und êre in Hartmanns ‘Iwein,’” in Hartmann von Aue: Wege der Forschung, ed. Hugo Kuhn and Christoph Cormeau (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1973), p. 435 [pp. 426–449]; originally published in Euphorion 60 (1966): 30–47. On moral ambiguity more generally in Iwein, see
Alan Roberstshaw, “Ambiguity and Morality in Iwein,” in Hartmann von Aue: Changing Perspectives. London Hartmann Symposium 1985, ed. Timothy McFarland and Silvia Ranawake, Göppinger Arbeiten zur Germanistik 486 (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1988), pp. 117–128.
See Mishtoomi Bose, “From Exegesis to Appropriation: The Medieval Solomon,” Medium Ævum 64 (1996): 187–210.
Mathias Herweg, “Der Kosmos als Innenraum. Ein persischer Thronsaal und seine Rezeption im Mittelalter,” Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte 80 (2006):3–54.
Christian Thelen, Das Dichtergebet in der deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters, Arbeiten zur Frühmittelalterforschung 18 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1989), p. 458 notes that Albrecht replaces Wolfram’s idea of a universal “Gotteskindschaft” (i.e., the idea that all people are the children of God) with a more special relationship between God and poet.
C. Stephen Jaeger, “Der Schöpfer der Welt und das Schöpfungswerk als Prologmotiv in der mittelhochdeutschen Dichtung,” Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur 107 (1978), 1–18.
In one version (the so-called ‘Reisefassung’) of Brandans Meerfahrt, the protagonist destroys the book because he regards the marvels as unbelievable. As punishment, he is the ordered by God to set out to see the wonders for himself, so that he will be able to re–create the book. Cf. Walter Haug, “Brandans Meerfahrt,” in Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters. Verfasserlexikon, ed. Kurt Ruh, 2nd edn., 10 vols. (Berlin: de Gruyter: 1978–1999), 1:985–991. Note also the related motif in the Wartburgkrieg of Zabulon’s magical book that is hidden on the magnetic mountain, only to be retrieved by Virgil and taken to Brandan. Cf. Wachinger, “Wartburgkrieg,” 10:753–756. Reinfried von Braunschweig 20,989–21,722 features an episode about this magical book on the magnetic mountain. Cf.
Alfred Ebenbauer, “Reinfried von Braunschweig,” in Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters. Verfasserlexikon, ed. Kurt Ruh, 2nd edn., 10 vols. (Berlin: de Gruyter: 1978–1999), 7:1171–1176.
For the various ways in which medieval thinkers engaged with the issues of Aristotle’s moral and intellectual excellence and of his chances of salvation, see Steven Williams, The Secret of Secrets: The Scholarly Career of a Pseudo-Aristotelian Text in the Latin Middle Ages (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003), pp. 272–289.
For the story of Aristotle being ridden by Phyllis, see Hellmut Rosenfeld, “Aristotles und Phyllis,” in Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters. Verfasserlexikon, ed. Kurt Ruh, 2nd edn., 10 vols. (Berlin: de Gruyter: 1978–1999), 1:434–436.
For the tradition of seeking trinitarian analogies in natural phenomena, see Peter Kern, Trinität, Maria, Inkarnation. Studien zur Thematik der deutschen Dichtung des späteren Mittelalters, Philologische Studien und Quellen 55 (Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 1971), pp. 150–163.
For details, see Christel Meier, Gemma spiritalis. Methode und Gebrauch der Edelsteinallegorese von frühen Christentum bis ins 18. Jahrhundert. Münstersche Mittelalter-Schriften 34,1. Munich: Fink, 1977, p. 264; Wegner, Albrecht, pp. 86–87.
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© 2007 Annette Volfing
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Volfing, A. (2007). Justifying the Text: The Poetological Program. In: Medieval Literacy and Textuality in Middle High German. Arthurian and Courtly Cultures. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230607224_6
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